


A Book of Love

by Redclaire999



Category: NCIS
Genre: Especially for the book lovers out there!, F/M, Getting Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24311308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redclaire999/pseuds/Redclaire999
Summary: 'I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book'J.K Rowling.'Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know'.Alberto Manguel
Relationships: Ellie Bishop & Nick Torres, Ellie Bishop/Nick Torres
Comments: 17
Kudos: 49





	A Book of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I just felt like writing something sweet today!

‘So, we know that the dealer is selling tactical armament details on the dark web’ Ellie flicked efficiently through her prepared slideshow of information on the plasma screen. He was determined not to even make eye contact with her today, he was too mad with her. Nick concentrated on the images on the screen and not of the soft wool of her sweater brushing against his bare forearms as she clicked her little remote controller. Each touch distracted him and caused tiny sizzles of electricity shoot up and down his skin. He took a step away from her and crossed his arms firmly.

Ellie huffed in response, no doubt glaring at him. She’d been stabbing him with dagger eyes since they had argued at the team’s Friday night drinks last week. She had met up with her date in the bar and Nick had spent most of the evening watching the dude and had caught him eyeballing the waitress when Ellie wasn’t looking, The guy was a dick, so as a _friend_ , he had told her so. She tore strips off him with her caustic tongue about getting involved in her love-life … _again_.

Fair point really, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

Completely disproportionate though, he felt now, for her to blank him since Monday. So, he had gotten mad right back at her and now it was stalemate. With McGee on annual leave the frostiness in the office between them was palpable.

Taking a breath, she continued, ‘NSA have picked up nothing so far, but our dead Lieutenant Griffin obviously traded those secret files for something embarrassing he was being blackmailed with. All we have is this ripped out book page we found in his pocket, with the random numbers and a partial barcode. Kasie is working on it now’.

‘Boss, the money involved in the transfers is not huge, Griffin paid up just ten grand. Can’t be an international terrorist organisation or government, these secrets are worth millions of dollars to the right people, whoever’s doing this, either doesn’t know the value of the information or they’re amateurs’

‘You guys all owe me a beer! I’ve figured it out!’ Kasie waltzed into the squad room and took a theatrical bow.

‘What you got Kasie?’ Gibbs enquired pleasantly; he really did have a soft spot for the new forensic scientist.

‘The bar code is a library ID tag, I’ve worked at it for hours and I can now tell you that page on the dead guy belonged to a book from the-,’

‘Peabody Library in Baltimore’ Ellie gasped with one of her lightbulb moments he usually found endearing. 

‘Now how in the hell did you know that, Bishop?’ whined Kasie, disappointed that her thunder was stolen.

‘The other numbers, not random’ Ellie rushed to her desk and started typing in the search bar rapidly, lips moving silently as she babbled to herself. Again, he usually adored that about her, but he was definitely mad with her so he paid no attention to her lips.

‘Nope not random; Dewey Decimal System’ Kasie intoned precisely as if everyone knew what that was.

Ellie dashed back to the plasma, clicking through images of Maryland news items rapidly.

‘I read something, someone had vandalised a section of the Peabody last month, all the books scattered, but only in one section. The 947s’

‘Oh yeah, the library poltergeist thing, I read that too.

‘Poltergeist? What poltergeist?’ Nicks heckles went up as soon as any mentioned spooky things.

‘Relax Nick, it was a story, not real’ she reassured him as she turned to Ellie ‘Well this book page was from a 956, that’s the same aisle, right?’ Kasie asked nodding along, tapping into her tablet swiftly pulling up what she needed.

‘Can’t be a coincidence’. Both women shook their heads knowingly.

‘Can someone please translate for the non-nerds in the room’ Nick snapped, he hated being out of the loop. Ellie didn’t look at him but answered him anyway. She loved to explain stuff, he could so see her as a strict, cane-wielding school ma’am. He felt a twinge of fullness developing involuntarily and briskly covered his fly area with a file.

_Head out of the gutter Torres!_

‘The Dewey Decimal System is the international book coding system used in libraries. Each number corresponds to a topic. The 900s are history and geography, each sub-section is further broken down numerically. The 947s are Russian History books. 956 would be, um’ she clicked through her encyclopaedic brain ‘the Middle East section!’

‘Jeez, why do we even need computers with you around, Bishop, we should all just plug into you, huh?’ He thought he could detract from his rising problem with a light-hearted quip but obviously hadn’t thought his ‘witty’ comment all the way through.

 _Aww man!_ He rolled his head on his neck, waiting for the backlash.

Kasie snorted out a laugh, and Gibbs smirked around the sipper of his coffee cup.

Ellie’s face went scarlet. Her chin jutted up in temper. She probably thought he had deliberately embarrassed her being a smart ass.

_Great work Torres, that probably cost me another week in silent purgatory._

‘Bishop go be a librarian at the Peabody. It's very Cold War but secrets were often hidden and exchanged in books. Someone’s playing from an old hymn sheet. Check all the books in the whatever section for the missing files until we get more intel’.

‘Are you serious!’ she exclaimed

‘Yeah?’ Gibbs looked at her in confusion

‘Oh my god, wow, best job _ever_!’ she gushed, seemingly genuinely elated at getting handed a terrible assignment, imprisoned, like forever, in a library.

‘Torres, on her 6, our murderer could show up anytime’

‘Boss, me and libraries are like _urgh_ ’ he grumbled his face assuming a pained look. ‘Wouldn’t McGeek be better at this? He’s due back tomorrow’.

‘Nope, it’s you. With the no talking in the library, it’ll be perfect for you two, you’ve both been practising that for days.’ He smirked, walking off towards the Director’s office.

They both flushed with awkward embarrassment.

Three days in, Nick thought it was the most boring stakeout he had ever had. He sat at his desk, piles of books in front of him, each one needing to be checked for SD cards, notes whatever. Ellie seemed to float on air, smiling like it was the best gig ever, in wide-eyed delight chatting with the other librarians about the architecture, the displays, even woodwork on the old bookcases.

She _loved_ her pretend job, her desk was decked out with a potted daisy plant and a perfectly aligned stack of novels. Apparently, it was a thing to display your favourite books. Ellie had even brought a whole new stationery kit with her; pencils, multicoloured post-its, and a floral notebook, while he was stuck at the public readers desks, on a torturously uncomfortable wooden chair, looking at an old guy adjusting his dentures and picking at his ear wax at the next table.

And everything smelled _old_!

Nick hated it.

With Kasie’s help looking at suspicious Dark Web chat, they had narrowed down the possible sections to search, but even then, there were _thousands_ of books. Morosely Nick reckoned this could take years, his life flashed before him and he envisioned himself slowly succumbing to creeping nerd-itis, pale skinned from lack of daylight, dressed in elbow-patched brown cardigans and tan corduroy trousers.

The conclusion of this case couldn’t come soon enough.

In very stilted conversation about work matters only they had agreed to ‘top and tail’, an image completely different to what Ellie had actually proposed popped unbidden into his mind. He had to work really hard after that to pay attention to her instructions as he started with the books from the top shelf in each section and she from the bottom rack. Sometimes they met accidently back at the middle shelving section they were working on but that was it, they even took separate breaks to make sure someone always had an eye on the bookcases.

The only time Ellie actually spoke to him was when she got crazy angry when they found a book with the inner pages sliced out, nothing to do with their case, just with what looked like a small flask of whiskey hidden inside. Someone had obviously taken their time to conceal the alcohol but while he puzzled over the why, she fumed over the damage to the book. She spluttered in temper over that for a good five minutes!

How could anyone be that passionate over an old book about the Battle of Sevastopol?

With her employee card Ellie disappeared for hours into the reserved bookshelves and the basement. He didn’t like it when he couldn’t see her. It had crossed his mind their suspect could be a librarian himself, but Gibbs said all the employees had checked out.

People watching kept him somewhat sane every day. He carefully observed each of the regulars and random walk-in readers who cruised along the aisles, ferreting out some book of interest, losing hours of their lives in this drab place with smiles on their faces.

Then crazy old guy took his dentures out and left them on the desk.

Nick had had enough.

He needed to vent, like Ellie had about that damn book. Surely, she'd let him have his own temper tantrum, just five minutes of bitching about the case would do!

He left a note on Ellie’s pristinely organised desk and strolled down to the furthest reaches of the shelving. At least here they could talk openly about the case without blowing cover.

Nick had no idea what happened next, other than Ellie was beyond pissed off with him. Her fury came from nowhere and blew over him like a tornado. And then she stormed off with a hurt expression.

_What the actual fuck had happened?_

He was glad to be heading back to the Navy Yard for a couple of hours with some books with numbers scribbled in the margins for Kasie to decipher.

Still confused he mentioned Ellie’s furious outburst to Kasie, maybe another girl could figure her mood out?

‘What do you mean Nick, ‘ _she went all angry crazy’_? She seemed fine with me when I was talking to her like an hour ago. She was ecstatic to be spending time in such a gorgeous library’

‘Yeah well, today not so much, I needed a time-out from watching a bunch of old people shuffle along the aisles, one old dude in particular was freaking me out, dentures _urgh_ ’, he shivered in revulsion. ‘All I did was ask her to meet me in the stacks to blow off steam and she flipped, like seriously angry, eyes bulging, furious Bishop!’ he imitated his best impression of Ellie’s scary-angry face.

‘When you say ‘blow off steam’ you mean...you and Bishop! Wow, TMI !’ Kasie looked horrified.

‘Wait _what_ , you think me and Bishop...no! nuh-uh, nope! I wanted to _vent_ ; libraries are boring, full of boring, squirrelly people, who all smell kinda musty’.

‘So, you said all this, to Bishop, a known lover of books, in her favourite place?’ she shook her head, dumbfounded at his lack of awareness.

‘Ooh, now you say it like _that_ …’ the stinging realisation that he had probably insulted Ellie washed over him and immediately he wished he could take it back. It least that explained _why_ she was angry; he still thought her reaction was a _little_ excessive.

‘And you asked her to meet you, in the _stacks_?’ Kasie continued grilling him with a wide-eyed stare.

‘Yeah, that’s what the dusty shelving way down the back of the library are called, who knew! It’s like a ghost town back there, its creepy, but nobody would hear us, you know, talking, about the case, that silence in the library rule and all’

He couldn’t figure out why her face was changing from stunned to mouth-open speechlessness. ‘I left her this note on her desk and she threw it at me and stormed off, like what the hell? She’s completely blanking me now’

Kasie read the scrunched-up neon yellow post-it note he offered her.

_‘Meet me in the stacks, I just need 5 mins with you. Please’_

‘OMG Torres! You are an _idiot_!’ she squealed, hands going to her face.

‘Why _what_ , what did I do?’ surprised and confused at her vehemence.

‘Nick, ‘meet me in the stacks’ is a euphemism, it’s like the _ultimate_ chat up line for book nerds’ she explained patiently.

‘Huh?’ his face scrunched in confusion.

‘I can’t believe I need to spell this out to you’ Kasie muttered rolling her eyes to heaven. ‘Nick, to a bookworm, you asked her to meet you in the dark recesses of her favourite _public_ place for fast, hot, passionate, up against the bookcases, …’ Kasie’s mind wandered off into her own long imagined fantasy library hook up.

‘And she turned up’ he whispered, the truth dawning on him and he slumped onto a high stool at the workstation.

‘And she turned up Torres. And _you_ proceeded to-,’

‘Oh my god…’ his voice failed him, and he gulped down a huge swallow.

‘Yup’ she popped the p with a sigh. ‘Idiot’ she shook her head dumbfounded.

‘Kasie, please, I’m _begging_ you! You gotta tell me how I fix this, she’s like _completely_ ignoring me’, panic was flashing like a strobe light across his face.

Kasie felt genuinely sorry for Nick, a guy who oozed cool and sexy, but was just so clueless. She’d been rooting for him and Ellie to get together for months, they obviously more than _liked_ each other.

‘Ok, I’ll help you, but it won’t be easy. She’s probably hurt and embarrassed and you’ve just like completely _ruined_ her perfect sexual fantasy’.

He groaned in despair as he bent over onto Kasie’s desk, his forehead thumping on his crossed arms.

‘She must _hate_ me!’ his muffled moan escaping his arm fortress.

‘Well, she obviously doesn’t hate you Torres, she turned up, right? You need to woo her back’

 _‘Woo_ her? Like poetry and crap?’ he blurted in chagrin.

‘Nick, what you call ‘crap’ is what gets Bishop going’ she huffed in exasperation. ‘You need to readjust your mindset and let her see you made an effort. I get Ellie is not your usual type, but you like her, _a lot_ , right?’

His flushed face and awkward expression answered her question. She smirked, proud of her prowess at forcing the _oh so_ cocky and suave Nick Torres to fess up to his feelings.

‘Teach me, oh wise one, I need to salvage this somehow’ he finally smiled, trying to claw back some of his dignity.

‘I have an idea that might work’ Kasie said in her optimistic voice.

Nick spent the rest of the afternoon doing exactly what Kasie had told him to do, silently thanking her again for writing it all down in her careful, highlighted, with loads of arrows and underlining, notes.

Ellie was pointedly ignoring him, taking a desk with her back to him, industriously getting on with her work of checking each volume against the catalogue, searching for the discrepancy that would solve the case.

He stacked the bundle of books he had collected into a small pile, carefully checking again that he had them in the right order and walked over to her desk. She didn’t even look up as he placed the stack at her elbow.

Now it was up to her.

He sat back down at his desk, anxiously watching her as she took the first book off the top of his pile, flicking to the rosy pink post-it with which he had tabbed the relevant page. He had used reusable sticky arrows, also provided by Kasie, to highlight the passages he wanted Ellie to read. Underlining, defacing or otherwise damaging pages was akin to a war crime for bookworms he had learned.

Nick watched her closely as she read the first book, and then as she grabbed each one after the next with eager haste. He chewed on his bottom lip, anxiety welling in his chest.

The first book read,

_‘I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life’_

_The Notebook_ by Nicholas Sparks.

The next,

_‘You are sunlight through a window, which I stand in, warmed.’_

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

The third book read,

_‘Anyone who has seen her smile has known perfection. She instils grace in every common thing and divinity in every careless gesture’._

_Cyrano de Bergerac_ by Edmond Rostand

He smiled thinking of the fourth book, it was absolutely true.

_‘In case you ever foolishly forget; I am never not thinking of you’_

_Selected Diaries_ by Virginia Woolf

Nick noticed her squirm a little in her seat, a flush rising up the side of her neck. He frantically tried to count back through the pile of books to figure out which one she was reading that had provoked _that_ response.

_‘I like myself better when I’m with you’_

_Tuesdays with Morrie_ by Mitch Albom

_‘You are dearer to me than language has the power of telling’_

_Evelina_ by Frances Burney

_‘In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed’_

_Pride and Prejudice_ by Jane Austen.

She sat up straight now, the twiddling of her pencil had ceased.

_‘If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more!’_

_Emma_ by Jane Austen

Ellie’s hand went to her mouth. Nick thought he had actually stopped breathing, his heart racing as she snatched up the last book, impatiently flicking to the last few pages of the novel bookmarked with his last post-it.

He had thought long and hard about what he wanted to write on it.

A post-it really is a small piece of paper!

He decided to keep it simple.

He hoped Kasie was right about this. The words in the books were beautiful, he understood now a little more how she found such joy in novels. The pages he had highlighted eloquently said everything he had wanted to say for a long time.

Except sorry. He wanted to say that to her face himself, in his own meagre, inadequate words.

_‘You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. I have loved none but you. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever… A word, a look, will be enough’_

_Persuasion_ by Jane Austen

Abruptly Ellie stood up, her chair screeching loudly, the jarring sound echoing in the silence of the library. Readers' heads popped up from desks and cubicals all across the hall to tut vociferously at the interruption. It was Nick’s turn to squirm in his seat, scarlet-faced with mortification. She was going to eviscerate him.

Ellie slowly put her last book back down on the desk and turned to face him, her eyes flashing, her cheeks glowing red.

 _Oh crap!_ He started to panic. His face burned and his palms got sweaty, Nick eyed the exits longingly.

 _Maybe I should have let her calm down before I tried this_ ‘wooing’ _idea._

He felt certain she was about to ‘woo’ him out cold with a punch in the face any minute now, as she strode purposefully over to his table, with more tutting from the scattered readers as her heels clipped the tiled floor. Then she was standing over him, and he had a flashback of being back in school getting reprimanded for goofing about again.

Not the sexy teacher daydream, nope, the intimidating, ‘go to the principal’s office’ kind.

His breath caught as he glanced up at her serious face. She was nervously biting on her lip again, she did that when her brain was in overdrive. Casually she cocked her hip up onto his desk and carefully bent down close to him; his eyes got a full view of her delicate lacy bra as her blouse floated away from her body with the movement. He tried to avert his eyes; he really did but she was so close to him she filled his field of vision. Her hair ticked his neck, his shoulder. He swallowed roughly as her distinct soft floral body scent filled his senses.

‘Something on your mind, Torres?’ she whispered in his ear, her silky voice sending goose bumps down his arms and making his pants feel too tight.

‘I’m really sorry Ellie-,’ she shook her head slowly, shushing his apology with a warm finger on his lips and then traced a path with her fingertip from his lips, down his chin, his neck and onto his chest. Her eyes sparkled with suppressed desire as a smile lit up her face.

His eyes fell to the tabletop as her other hand firmly stuck his pink post-it on the open page of his neglected book.

I love you Ellie

I love you too x

His heart thundered in his chest; this was really happening.

‘Would you- um I mean’ he cleared his throat and chose his words carefully ‘Ellie Bishop, will you meet me in the stacks, please?’ he shyly asked the woman he loved.

‘Oof!’ he blurted out in surprise as she grasped hold of his hand, dragged him out of his seat and, frowning sternly at any busybodies who looked up from their pages, frogmarched him way down the back to the dimly lit Ancient Greek section.

Kasie was right; that is the ultimate chat up line to use on book lovers… _his_ book lover!

After that day Nick Torres was very fond of libraries.

He loved them so much he and Ellie even got married, in that exact one.


End file.
